Is "Figure of Eight" Paul McCartney's Most Underrated Single?*

Figure of Eight isn't one of my favorites. I saw him in '89 and was disappointed he opened with it. It's one of those songs that just seems to sit there. To *me*, it really doesn't have any hooks. Paul obviously like it as it opened the album, opened the concerts on tour, and was a single. I agree with the poster who said it just doesn't go anywhere.

Most underrated single? Juniors Farm. I don't think anyone has even mentioned this. Yeah, it's on some of the compilations, though it's the edited version. I remember hearing Sally G on the radio and was confused when I bought the single and Sally G was the b-side. The a-side was Juniors Farm?!?! Never heard of it. I never did hear it on the radio during that time period, but grew to LOVE the song. I think it's actually one of his best rockers, ever, and think with more exposure (Wings Over America) could have been much more popular. It could have been a crowd-pleaser in concert too, but he's nearly avoided playing it live for all these years. Such a shame.

Girls School is a good candidate for the most underrated too.

 

Thinking about this further... I think your overall thesis that his reputation was somewhat damaged by bad/questionable work is true, but I think it was the casual record buyers, rather than his loyal fan base, that deserted him. For example, I did buy FITD, despite being disappointed in it. In essence, he became an artist that only appealed to his fan base, which he remains to this day. I also think some of that would have been inevitable due to changing times... his popularity with the general public would have eroded somewhat even if he'd released nothing but great albums in the 80s. But he hastened it notably with what seemed to be desperate attempts to be popular, like the Jackson duets and the cheesey modern production.

 

It was absolutely an emperor's new clothing album. I gagged when I saw that was what they were going for next for the archive collection or whatever it is for Valentine's Day.
It has such a tonedeaf production that it completely annihilates the songs that could actually have meaningful, intimate lyrics, like My Brave Face and This One.
However I feel the same about Tug of War too. There was absolutely nothing that he did in the 70s and even in 00s that had such a mismatch of production with the style/feel/lyrics of songs. I haven't heard Press to Play though.

 

My Brave Face opened the album, not Figure of Eight. Figure of Eight did open up side 2 of the album.

 

Oops, my bad. It's been a while since I listened to this album.

 

For my money, "Junior's Farm"/"Sally G" is McCartney's best non-album single.

I've never liked "Girls School". It sounds like a "forced" rocker to me. Good guitar work from Jimmy McCulloch, though, as always.

 

Yes? I address that point in my statement.

 

FITD has always seemed to try a bit to hard for me too. Its a fine album but there is a whiff of desperation and zero room for any chances of a disappointing commercial release. After Press he knew he couldn't risk any more disappointments. Some excellent songs but all a bit too over polished, constrained and nervous. That said, one of his top 6?

 

In April 90 my dad was thoroughly disappointed to have it open the show.
Paul was on a world tour for the first time in 13/14 years.
My dad was 49 at the time.
To this day our sarcastic inside joke is Figure of Eight the best McCartney song ever.

 

Well Paul learned his lesson .
He has never opened a show with his current song since that tour I believe .

He's always opened with a Beatles song since then , except "Jet"...and "Venus and Mars / Rock Show" one year I believe .

 

Getting Closer.
One of the best songs ever by anyone.

 

Not for me, not even close...like I said, Press To Play is better IMO, and possibly even less dated sounding than Flowers In The Dirt is. I mean, last time I listened to FITD there were quite a few cringeworthy moments, I thought...Hell, twenty five years ago I thought Off The Ground was better than FITD (now I think they're about equally bad/embarrassing)

 

I'll consign that. The narrative that Press to Play was awful and Flowers was a big comeback has never made sense to me. Both had the same spotty songwriting and embarrassing 80s production. And they both sold about the same.

 

And.. it doesn't get mentioned much, but back in the day when everyone bought physical product (CDs and albums) many of his album covers didn't do him any favors as far as making him look like a credible, current "rock" artist.

A vintage Hollywood 30's style glamour portrait with Linda for Press To Play , a bunch of flowers thrown on an indiscernible background for Flowers in the Dirt, a bunch of odd pipes and a chair on the cover of Pipes of Peace, etc., etc., may be artsy , but none of them would necessarily compel a person at a store to buy the album, with them thinking "Wow this looks like a rockin' album!"

And, many of the covers wouldn't even really let people that were walking by an end cap or new releases area back in the day, say..at Best Buy that it was a Paul McCartney album.

 

Well, to be fair, none of them were rockin' albums. Which was probably another big reason they didn't do well.

 

I agree but the covers were really bland. At least if they had less blah looking covers unsuspecting customers wouldn't know the album they bought didn't rock much until they got the album home and played it.

Instead of using the term rockin', maybe I should have said that the covers weren't really conveying...anything in particular that would generate much interest in the album for anyone walking by them in a store.
But, maybe by the general era we are talking about Paul's albums weren't going to break any sales records anyway regardless of the covers because they weren't generating much positive buzz content-wise.

 

Yeah... I agree those covers were unimpressive, but I'm skeptical that had a huge impact on sales. McCartney, Venus and Mars, Speed of Sound... none of those album covers was a masterpiece of design either, but they sold fine. Now that I think about it, I'd say that on the whole McCartney has the worst album covers of the ex-Beatles.

 

I think it's another one o' these cases where, in retrospect people are like, "Well, the critics said Press To Play sucked so therefore it must suck! The critics loved Flowers In The Dirt so therefore it must one of McCartney's better albums!"

McCartney's album covers tend to be "arty"; not necessarily representative of the music they contained, but you can tell some thought went into 'em. And rarely did he ever skimp on the packaging: gatefold covers, posters, booklets, all sorts of goodies. I doubt the covers had much effect on sales...if anything, in the old days "word of mouth" probably had more of an effect.

Even worse than Ringo's? Some of those Ringo album covers are downright f--kin' embarrassing (Ringo The 4th and Stop and Smell The Roses, I am looking at you in particular!)

 

And can you imagine the derision if Paul had simply decided to dress up as Klattu?